 Research Mission Our research mission is to produce new knowledge in the biomedical sciences which will improve human health. Vision High quality research is the basis for improvements in public and personal health. Therefore, the College of Medicine will encourage disease-focused research that is translational—from biomedical research to disease prevention and treatment—and will strive to incorporate fundamental biomedical research into clinical medicine. We will maintain a leadership position in basic research directed toward understanding fundamental cell and whole organism function. We will increase our sponsored program support in real terms by about 30% over the next 5 years (1998-2002). This translates to an aggressive, yet obtainable goal of increasing funding by about 6% per year above the rate of inflation. The best measures of our success or failure will be our institutional ranking by NIH in total research funding (top one-third among all colleges of medicine nationally and top 10 among public colleges of medicine) and our ranking by the AAMC in research support per faculty member (top 20% or above among all colleges of medicine nationally). Goals for Research 1. Achieve high ranking nationally in selected areas of research. Existing strong externally supported programs in all units of the College must be sustained. This includes programs within the Children’s Hospital Research Foundation, the Shriners Burns Institute, and the VA medical Center. Strong research programs include mouse molecular genetics and physiology, cardiovascular biology, perinatal and developmental biology, pulmonary biology , infectious diseases and environmental health. New initiatives will be made in areas of potential strength and future emphasis in biomedical research nationally. These include cancer, neurosciences, bone disease, structural biology, functional genomics, environmental genetics and addictive behavior. This will be accomplished by careful recruitment of outstanding new faculty and department chairs to enhance targeted areas of academic excellence. The College has made major investments in structural biology and will continue this commitment to achieve national recognition and attract substantial peer reviewed funding. Expertise in structural biology will support future programmatic development of many areas in the basic biomedical sciences. The College has recruited several outstanding researchers in bone biology and in addictive behavior who are now well positioned to obtain major programmatic funding in these areas. The Children’s Hospital Research Foundation continues to make substantial investments in developmental biology, human genetics, functional genomics, and proteomics.2. Reduce the costs of animal research. About one-half of our research grants, totaling over $30M in sponsored program funding, involve studies with animals. The most productive of these in terms of funding use transgenic or gene knockout mouse models. However, all of these studies are at risk if we are unable to significantly and permanently reduce the costs associated with the care of these animal models. There also needs to be prudent planning by investigators to minimize costs by minimizing the size of their mouse colonies.3. Sustain our internationally recognized transgenics and gene targeting programs. A very large percentage of the College of Medicine’s sponsored program activity is now dependent on transgenic and gene targeting technologies. Start-up costs for these technologies were offset in large part by a generous one-time grant from the Marion-Merrell Dow Foundation. This infrastructure has leveraged over $50M in research grants over the past 5 years, was instrumental in the success of our recent OBR Investment Fund Award to expand the transgenic core, and has the potential for maintaining high productivity for many years to come. Funds from external sources such as foundations or NIH to update and renovate the facilities will be needed by FY 2000.4. Develop new core facilities in biostatistics, imaging/molecular morphometry, and animal pathology, and prepare for future initiatives in electronic research administration. Plans are under way to provide researchers in the College of Medicine three new cores in biostatistical support services, imaging-molecular morphometry, and animal pathology. The new research web site recently provided by the College is being widely used by faculty and is a harbinger of the future in electronic research technologies. The College must be fully prepared for future initiatives in electronic research administration and be in a position to benefit from new developments in information technology and the Internet 2 project. Electronic submission of proposals and on-line publishing will soon be required. Both faculty and support staff will need on-going training.5. Create an environment that fosters investigator-driven collaborative research initiatives. Several concepts in this strategic initiative encourage increased interactions between basic science and clinical departments, development of cross-departmental thematic research programs, and support of faculty-initiated research programs involving multi-investigator collaborations. While individual investigator-initiated grants will form the core of externally supported research in the immediate future, collaborative research to address complex clinical problems will be an important mechanism of future growth.6. Reconceptualize research to be more disease-oriented with emphasis on both prevention and treatment. The NIH and other federal agencies are under congressional pressure to shift funds toward research on specific diseases and they are likely to do so. The College of Medicine must synchronize its research plans with the national direction, e.g., neurodegenerative diseases are targeted for substantial increases in disease-focused funding. These programs should provide ample opportunity for basic scientists, clinicians and their trainees to interact with one another. There are at least 5-6 major areas that are likely to receive long-term funding from NIH in disease areas where we have considerable strength. With effective leadership and cooperation between the University and Children’s Hospital Research Foundation, we should be well-positioned to compete for major funding in: cancer, asthma and other pulmonary disorders, hypertension, congenital heart disease, neurodegenerative diseases, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, osteoporosis, infectious diseases, liver diseases of childhood, addictive behaviors, and perhaps diabetes. Most of these diseases have both environmental and genetic etiologies. We are well positioned to examine both components, as well as their interactions. Our existing strong programs in maternal-fetal biology, women’s health, pediatrics and cardio-pulmonary biology need to be protected and encouraged to develop additional disease-specific approaches to funding.7. Obtain National Cancer Institute designation as a comprehensive cancer center. The College will establish realistic goals for strengthening our efforts in cancer research so that we become an NCI-supported comprehensive cancer center. One strategy in this effort is the recruitment of a nationally known physician scientist to direct the Barrett Cancer Center. The Health Alliance has committed significant new resources in support of programs for adults and Children’s Hospital Medical Center has a very substantial program in pediatric oncology.8. Expand clinical trials. The College of Medicine currently has more than 1,000 active clinical trials protocols, most of which are industry supported. The College and the University of Cincinnati Medical Associates have invested funds to establish a clinical trials office. This office will provide a full spectrum of services to support existing trials, as well as to solicit new business.9. Build stronger research programs in collaboration with the VA Medical Center. The VA facility remains too isolated and is probably underutilized in terms of collaboration with College of Medicine researchers to build the strongest possible clinical and basic science research programs. However, the VA and its Research Service constitute an outstanding opportunity for collaborative, mutually beneficial expansion of research, especially in areas of interest to the VA such as substance abuse, chronic mental illness, geriatrics, rehabilitation, and comparative outcomes of clinical practices.10. Establish mutually beneficial research collaborations between the College of Medicine and the Health Alliance. The College of Medicine must provide leadership to clinical research within the Alliance in areas of mutual interest and benefit to the two organizations. This could include clinical trials, outcome measures, necessary research components of clinical centers of excellence such as cancer, women’s health, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease.11. Maintain flexible terms of faculty appointments and reappointments in non-tenure research tracks. We must continue to recognize that retention of non-tenure track faculty and their programs is dependent upon both the quality of their academic performance and the availability of external funds to support them and their research programs. Most of the college’s research centers and programs are supported by external agencies through the peer review process. Obtaining extramural support is an important measure of the quality of a faculty member’s research and scholarship, as evaluated by peers. The contract between the University and the AAUP must recognize clearly that external research funds are necessary to support non-tenure track research faculty and their programs in the College of Medicine. Loss of external research support is generally cause for termination of the non-tenured faculty member primarily for academic and secondary for financial reasons.Measurable Benchmarks of Success in Research 1. Increase total sponsored program funding to the College from all agencies by at least 30%, inflation-adjusted, by 2002. 2. Obtain the top one-third ranking among all colleges of medicine and obtain the top 10 ranking among publicly-supported colleges of medicine in terms of sponsored program activity. 3. Maintain a top 10th percentile ranking of our biomedical science research faculty and obtain a top 20th percentile ranking of our clinical research faculty among all colleges of medicine in terms of sponsored program funding per faculty member. 4. Have at least five of our departments in the College rank among the top 10 peer departments nationally in terms of total sponsored program activity. 5. Create at least three research centers by 2002 which will have an organizational structure and extramural support for core facilities and training programs. 6. Measure the impact of our research findings based upon numbers of new patents, income from patents, numbers of new investigator initiated and programmatic research grants, new prevention and treatments derived from our research. |
